AMT Atmospheric Measurement Techniques AMT Atmos. Meas. Tech. 1867-8548 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/amt-3-301-2010 Elemental analysis of aerosol organic nitrates with electron ionization high-resolution mass spectrometry Rollins A. W. 1 Fry J. L. 2 Hunter J. F. 1 Kroll J. H. 5 3 Worsnop D. R. 3 Singaram S. W. 1 Cohen R. C. 4 1 Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94721, USA Chemistry Department, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA Aerosol and Cloud Chemistry, Aerodyne Research Inc., Billerica, MA 01821, USA Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94721, USA now at: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 26 02 2010 3 1 301 310 Copyright: © 2010 A. W. Rollins et al. 2010 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/3/301/2010/amt-3-301-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/3/301/2010/amt-3-301-2010.pdf

Four hydroxynitrates (R(OH)R'ONO<sub>2</sub>) representative of atmospheric volatile organic compound (VOC) oxidation products were synthesized, nebulized and sampled into an Aerodyne High Resolution Time of Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS). The resulting mass spectrum was used to evaluate calibration factors for elemental analysis of organic nitrates by AMS, and to determine the distribution of nitrogen in the detected fragments in a search for an AMS signature of organic nitrates. We found that 30% of the detected nitrogen mass is in the NO<sup>+</sup> and NO<sub>2</sub><sup>+</sup> fragments, 12% at NH<sub>x</sub><sup>+</sup> fragments, 5% at C<sub>x</sub>H<sub>y</sub>O<sub>z</sub>N<sup>+</sup> fragments, and 53% at various C<sub>x</sub>H<sub>y</sub>N<sup>+</sup> fragments. Elemental analysis indicated that nitrogen was detected with higher efficiency than carbon and hydrogen, but oxygen was detected with reduced efficiency compared to previously reported results for a suite of organics which did not include organic nitrates. The results are used to suggest the maximum corrections to ambient O:C and N:C ratios based on AMS measurements.

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